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pinevox · 2 months ago

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What Is VoIP Telephone Service and How Does It Work?

Stuck with a landline that hasn’t changed since the 90s? VoIP telephone service isn’t just for tech geeks—it’s a simple, cost-effective way to upgrade your business communications, and the best part? You don’t have to be an IT wizard to make it work.

In this blog, we’ll explain what VoIP telephone systems are, how they work, and why so many businesses in the UK are ditching their old-fashioned landlines for a smarter, more cost-effective option. Get yourself a cup of coffee and let’s get started.

What Is VoIP Telephone Service?

Instead of using traditional phone lines, VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol, is a phone technology that makes calls via the internet. It converts your voice into digital data, sends it over the internet, and then reconverts it into sound on the other end. Think of it like using your internet connection to place phone calls—easy, right?

Unlike traditional phone systems, which rely on copper wires and often come with high costs, VoIP systems let you make local and international calls at a fraction of the price. It’s cost-effective, efficient, and, most importantly, flexible—perfect for modern UK businesses.

How Does VoIP Telephone Service Work?

It’s all about data. Understand VoIP in minutes with this step-by-step guide.

Voice to Data: When you talk into your VoIP phone, your voice gets turned into digital data. Transmission Over the Internet: These packets are then sent over the internet, where they’re transmitted to the other end. Back to Voice: Finally, the data is converted back into sound at the other end, so the person on the other line hears you loud and clear.

VoIP is great because it works on a variety of devices. Whether you’ve got a desk phone, a mobile, or even a laptop, you can make VoIP telephone calls—all you need is an internet connection.

Why Switch to VoIP? The Benefits of VoIP Telephone Service

Still not convinced? Here are some reasons why VoIP telephone systems are becoming a no-brainer for businesses across the UK.

Cost Savings: Ditch the Expensive Bills If your business is still tied to a traditional landline, you’re probably all too familiar with the high costs. Cost savings with VoIP are especially noticeable on long-distance and international calls. In fact, many calls are free, or come at a significantly lower rate than traditional phone services.

For businesses, this means slashing those hefty phone bills and redirecting the savings into more important things—like growing your business, or maybe even treating your team to a pint or two.

Advanced Features Without the Extra Hassle With VoIP, you get a range of features that you won’t find on your old landline. These include:

IVR – IVR stands for interactive voice response, which is essentially an auto attendant that answers your calls with a greeting and routes them to the appropriate department by offering a variety of options. Call Flow Management – Distribute incoming calls more efficiently with this feature. This will allow you to distribute calls efficiently among employees or departments such as sales, accounting, and support. Soft Phone App – Make and receive calls effortlessly with a soft phone app on your computer or mobile device, enabling flexible communication for businesses on-the-go.

And the best part? These features are typically included in the price, so you don’t have to shell out extra for them.

Scalability: Perfect for Growing Businesses

VoIP solutions are made to scale, regardless of how big or small your company is.

All it takes is a few clicks to add new users. No more waiting for engineers or dealing with complicated installations. Plus, since it’s all internet-based, your team can work from anywhere—whether they’re in the office, at home, or even on a remote beach.

4. Flexibility & Portability

Work from anywhere—no desk required. VoIP systems work on multiple devices, and they’re fully portable. If you need to take your office phone with you, just grab your mobile or laptop and start making calls wherever there’s an internet connection. VoIP keeps you connected whether you’re working remotely or attending a meeting.

Choosing the Right VoIP Telephone Service for Your Business

Consider the following factors when choosing a VoIP phone system for your company:

Internet Connection: A steady internet connection is necessary for high-quality calls. Check to see if your broadband is enough. Provider Reliability: Choose a provider with a strong reputation for reliability and excellent customer service. After all, if your phone system goes down, you want to be sure you can get it sorted quickly. Features: Look for the features that best suit your business needs. Call Recording – Record your calls for training, quality assurance, or legal purposes. Voicemail – A messaging system that stores voice messages when you are unavailable to answer a call. Softphone – Make and receive phone calls with a mobile device or PC. 4. Pricing Plans: Make sure the provider’s pricing plan fits within your budget, but don’t forget to factor in any hidden costs. The best VoIP telephone service will balance affordability with functionality.

Conclusion: Is VoIP Right for Your Business?

In a nutshell, VoIP telephone systems offer UK businesses a smarter, more affordable way to communicate. Whether you’re a startup looking to save on phone bills, or a growing business in need of flexible communication solutions, VoIP can help.

So, what are you waiting for? It’s time to upgrade. Reach out to PineVox today to discuss how we can help you switch to a VoIP system that’s perfect for your business. No jargon, no fuss—just simple, straightforward advice. Get a free telecom audit and demo of our cloud telephony and VoIP services.

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This Article is Originally Published on PineVox Website

#voip #voip services #phone services

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voipblog17225 · 2 months ago

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What Is VoIP Telephone Service and How Does It Work?

What Is VoIP Telephone Service?

How Does VoIP Telephone Service Work?

It’s all about data. Understand VoIP in minutes with this step-by-step guide.

VoIP is great because it works on a variety of devices. Whether you’ve got a desk phone, a mobile, or even a laptop, you can make VoIP telephone calls—all you need is an internet connection.

Why Switch to VoIP? The Benefits of VoIP Telephone Service

Still not convinced? Here are some reasons why VoIP telephone systems are becoming a no-brainer for businesses across the UK.

For businesses, this means slashing those hefty phone bills and redirecting the savings into more important things—like growing your business, or maybe even treating your team to a pint or two.

Advanced Features Without the Extra Hassle With VoIP, you get a range of features that you won’t find on your old landline. These include:

And the best part? These features are typically included in the price, so you don’t have to shell out extra for them.

Scalability: Perfect for Growing Businesses

VoIP solutions are made to scale, regardless of how big or small your company is.

4. Flexibility & Portability

Choosing the Right VoIP Telephone Service for Your Business

Consider the following factors when choosing a VoIP phone system for your company:

Conclusion: Is VoIP Right for Your Business?

========================

This Article is Originally published on PineVox Website.

#voip services #voip #voip phone system

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vivekhaldar · 5 years ago

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How Unix Won

Unix has won in every conceivable way. And in true mythic style, it contains the seeds of its own eclipse. This is my subjective historical narrative of how that happened.

I'm using the name "Unix" to include the entire family of operating systems descended from it, or that have been heavily influenced by it. That includes Linux, SunOS, Solaris, BSD, Mac OS X, and many, many others.

Both major mobile OSs, Android and iOS, have Unix roots. Their billions of users dwarf those using clunky things like laptops and desktops, but even there, Windows is only the non-Unix viable OS. Almost everything running server-side in giant datacenters is Linux.

How did Unix win?

It was built by programmers, for programmers. If you read the early papers describing Unix, you will see how the key abstractions (hierarchical filesystems, permissions, processes, interactive shells, pipes) have lasted conceptually unsullied for decades. That could only have happened if it exerted such a force field over geek minds that they propagated it.

The majority of it was written not in assembly language, but in C, a higher-level language, hence making it portable. This enabled relatively easy ports to a wide variety of hardware.

A freak historical accident. AT&T Labs, where it was developed, was forbidden under its anti-trust settlement from commercializing products unrelated to its core telecom business. Hence, Unix was licensed very cheaply to universities, including UC Berkeley, which subsequently built one of the more influential branches of the Unix family tree—BSD. Apparently, AT&T classified Unix as industrial waste for tax purposes when licensing it!

Unix spread through academia, and those students spread it through corporations after they graduated. It's a strategy that has been used by every major tech company, only in this case it was organic.

And then came the Internet, and the whole universe of daemons, tools, protocols, and utilities that undergirded it was built natively on Unix. That wasn't a huge surprise because a lot of the people that built the Net were Unix natives. BSD open-sourced its TCP/IP stack, kicking off its wide adoption outside the military.

By the late 90s and early 2000s, Linux started taking over the server-side. It has become the ultimate virtuous cycle in open source. When picking a new kernel one is virtually forced to go with Linux because of the huge community and massive engineering that has gone into solidifying it. That's probably why Android picked Linux even though it was running on the other end of the hardware spectrum.

So how and why would we move past Unix?

Unix, which got standardized into the POSIX spec, has accreted a tremendous amount of complexity over the decades. The POSIX spec is 3000 pages long. Linux now has nearly 400 system calls. What started as a clean, pure, minimal and elegant set of system abstractions has become a complex beast.

The very idea of the OS providing general-purpose abstractions with wide applicability is being challenged. When Unix was created, IO was orders of magnitude slower than CPU. There were enough CPU cycles to burn to provide these high-level abstractions, like a complex hierarchical filesystem. Now IO can easily saturate CPU. At least on the server side, folks just want to get the fastest performance out of their hardware. That's leading to the rise of frameworks like SPDK and DPDK that bypass heavy OS abstractions for storage and networking in favor of applications directly accessing the raw hardware, and rolling whatever abstraction they do need on their own.

The entire ecosystem in which an OS exists is changing. Application-level experiences are hermetic and make the underlying OS more or less irrelevant. Just look at Android or iOS or ChromeOS. Programming to a virtual machine (like the Java VM) makes programmers much more invested in their PL/runtime than the OS.

The above two points raise an interesting question: what does a modern operating system want? Look, for example, at Fuchsia, which is going in the direction of a microkernel with capabilities, that pushes most drivers and OS services out to userspace. These are ideas that have been floating in academic OS research for decades, but could never gain real mainstream acceptance because of the high barrier to making a viable real-world OS. This is the effect Rob Pike was talking about in his "Systems Research is Irrelevant" talk. But the prior two trends are finally dislodging the iron grip of Unix, and OSs are becoming interesting again!

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fluffy-critter · 3 years ago

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#crosspost #busybee

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vendorblog598 · 4 years ago

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Vlc Download Player For Mac

https://vendorblog598.tumblr.com/post/654728587701862400/utorrent-for-mac-download. This simple.exe file contains a powerful app for downloading files in.torrent format with greater speed and reliability than other P2P programs like Emule.Even while occupying little space and consuming few resources, the program remains an excellent tool for downloading all sorts of files using the BitTorrent protocol.

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Introduction

VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. Download the latest version of VLC Media Player for Mac. Excellent multimedia player supporting next to all formats. VLC Media Player is an Open Source Multimedia.

This is the year 2020. And standing in the year 2020, we see the world differently. Back in the 20th century, people rarely captured pictures. Because back then, cameras were not this much available. Also, the cameras were not cheap. But now, we have a camera, even on our mobile phones. And in some cases, some mobile phones have multiple cameras. We can even find mobile phones with four cameras. But we are not here to talk about cameras. We are here to talk about video and video players. We use our cameras to capture videos. But to play a video, we need a video player. VLC is a famous video player for a computer. And it offers many exciting features that others don’t. Here is everything you need to know about VOC download for Mac. So, let’s get deep into the article.

History of videos

Videos are actually photos. When you take too many pictures in a small fraction of time, you will get a video. This is the mechanism of video. Well, capturing a video was not easy in the past. But as time has changed, the way of capturing has also changed. Fun fact, the first video was captured in the year 1888. We don’t know if it was the first recorded video. But at least it is the oldest surviving video on earth.

This was a silent film. And it was only 2 seconds long. It was a Roundhay Garden Scene. And it was recorded in a farmhouse at Oakwood Grange Road, England. However, the way of recording videos changed with time.

John Logie Baird invented the first video camera. And it was designed in the early 1900s. But this was not handy. Hence, people could not use it often. But by the 1970s, the way of recording video was changed. JVC launched its game-changer video home system in the 1970s. The Vidar Videocassette recorder (VCR) was released in Japan. And using VCR, you can now watch your recorded video on your tv. As a result, the tendency of recording videos spread like wildfire.

And now, we have cameras on our mobile phones. Anytime we want to record anything. We can take out our mobile phone and record it. People record thousands of minutes of video each day all over the world.

Now let’s dig deep into the use of videos. And how videos changed our society.

Different Industry and Video

Video changed the world in many ways. And one of them is our entertainment industry. For example, cinemas, YouTube videos, and many more. Without the video cinema industry is nothing.

And we are living in the 21st century. And the cinema industry is vast. This industry is a multi-billion dollar industry. And you will be amazed to know. Some films earned 2 billion dollars. And you will find movies that made millions. So, you see how huge the industry is. And without video, we can not think of the film industry.

Advertising is becoming a vast industry. And there are thousands of people who rely on this industry. For example, some people become cameramen. So to record an ad film, You need a camera operator. And it would help if you had a cinematographer. Then you need a make up man. And you need this video to be edited. Hence it would help if you had a film editor. It would help if you had models to film the ad.

And most importantly you need crewmembers. As a result, you get a nice and clean ad. See, this is how huge this fantastic industry. Without video and video cameras, it won’t be possible.

YouTube is maybe the website with the most uploaded videos. And there are thousands of hours of videos uploaded on YouTube. And people upload hundreds of hours of videos every day. Not only that, people even earn money from YouTube. And there are even YouTubers whose net worth is in the millions. Many youngsters are trying to become YouTubers. They are making quality content for YouTube.

And all of these are possible because of video. And video cameras. Hence we can say, video changed the world in different ways. Also, it has a significant impact on our economy.

Video and Its impact on society

Time is changing. And society is also changing with time. Different types of videos influence our community in different ways. For example, a child will learn what it sees. And in today’s world, a child spends hours on a mobile phone. They watch different YouTube videos. So a child will learn what it sees on the Internet. If it watches good things. For example, they are helping the helpless, giving food to hungry people. Then a child will learn to help others. On the other hand, if someone watches violence. Then they will learn those.

Celebrities and social media influencers have a significant impact on our youth. These celebrities are from different sectors. And our youngsters love them. And they follow them wholeheartedly. These celebrities can be a movie star or a football player or a tech geek. But they all have the same impact on our young people. A simple video message from them can create chaos. And if these celebrities use video to make reasonable changes in society. They have that power. Because our young generation loves them so much. They will do anything for them.

Well, there is nothing in this world with only the good side. As every coin has two sides. Also, videos have some negative sides. For example, porn videos can affect the young generation. Some porn shows violence. And that can affect the youth.

Video players and VLC

When was the first video recorded and how it changed through time? The first video was made in 1888. But from then the way of capturing videos has changed dramatically. Recording videos became famous in the 1970s. It spread like a wildfire after the VCR was released. Because after that recording videos become easier.

After recording a video we need a video player to watch that video. In the past, we used video cassettes. But now we watch videos on our phones, TVs, and computers. And to watch a video on your phone or computer. It would help if you had a video player software. There are many video player software. For example, we have KMplayer, the VLC video player, classic video player, PotPlayer, and many more. But not many video players are as good as the Vlc player.

If we search the history of the video player software. Then we will see the first video player software was released in 1995. RealPlayer basic and RealPlayer plus are the first released video player software. And this software is still active. Though it is not used as much. But it is, in fact, the first video player software.

But there is so much advanced video player software on the Internet. And people search for these. Because they want a better video watching experience. Vlc is one of the most famous video players. Hence, even mac users search for “Vlc download for mac.”

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VLC Download for Mac

Mac is an apple product. Famous tech company Apple released their computer iMac. It was March 24, 2001. Apple Inc. introduced its operating system for iMac. And they called it the Mac OS. It is probably one of the most used computer operating systems. But we see a tendency in people that they don’t like the system video player. Hence the search for vlc download for mac. So that they can download vlc on their mac.

But how can you make vlc download for mac? Well, you can download it from the Internet. So, follow these simple steps to make vlc download for mac.

Open your browser on your computer.

Go to the search bar.

Type vlc download for mac.

You will see the official website of Videolan.

Click that site. And go to the official website of Videolan.

You will see an option named Vlc download for mac.

Click that link. Then there will be another tab.

You can see a download button.

Click that button.

Then the download will begin.

When the download will finish. Install the application on your Mac.

And enjoy the vlc video player.

Why VLC?

Now the question is, why we are talking about vlc? Why not other video player software?

So, the answer is in the features of vlc. When you make vlc download for mac or your windows computer. And use it. Then you can easily understand why we are talking about vlc video player. This is a fantastic video player. It is so handy and easy to use.

You can seek your video easily with a keyboard. This application offers you to play a video in slow motion. You can even fast forward your video. In short, you can control video speed. Also, you can take still picture from the video. And using this video player you can even customize your sound quality. This application comes with equalizer. Hence you can use that to customize your sound effects. Also, this app offers you the normal options. For example, pause button, play button, and many more. And this app offers you easy control over video.

As a result, this has become famous among people. People love this video player.

Frequently Asked Questions and Answers of VLC download for Mac

First question: When was the Vlc video player first released?

Answer: VLC video player is a product of the Videolan company. And it was released on the 1st of February 2001.

Second Question: Is Vlc available for all operating systems?

Answer: Vlc video player is one of the most famous video players available on the Internet. And this is one of the biggest video player companies. Hence, it tries to offer its services to all kinds of operating systems users. But this application is available for the following operating system:

Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, Mac OS, Apple TV, chrome Os, and windows phone.

Third Question: Is it hard to make Vlc download for mac?

Answer: Mac is a famous operating system. But the in-built video player is not as famous as vlc video player. Hence, mac users search for vlc download for mac. And the good news is downloading vlc is not that hard. And installing is easier. You can see the easy steps to download vlc in this article. And following those steps, you can download it.

Fourth Question: What is the main difference between vlc and other video players?

Answer: Vlc offers you the easy way to control your video. For example, you can easily pause and play your video. Also, you can control the video speed. It offers you to take pictures from the video. In short, it offers you some of the best features you can imagine in a video player. And that’s what makes it better than any other video player.

Conclusion of VLC download for Mac

In conclusion, we will discuss the importance of videos. And finally, we will see how Vlc plays a great role in all these. Video changed the world. And you can notice it at every moment. In fact, if you think deeply you will see we can not pass a day without watching a video. It can be any video. So we can say video has become a part and parcel of our life. To play a video you need a video player. And there are many video players available on the Internet. But obviously, you want the best among them. And Vlc video player is one of the best video players. It offers you amazing features. And you will definitely fall in love with this. It is available in many operating systems. You can make vlc download for mac, windows, Linux, and many more.

The most popular cross-platform multimedia player used by almost everyone. When boredom strikes, all we need is a media player to stream our multimedia whenever and wherever we want. VLC media player eases the work for us. It provides us with advanced features to enhance our experience with the multimedia files. Most of us have come across this media player at least once while playing our media files on computers or smartphones.

If you have absolutely no idea about what VLC media player is and how it should be used, you are in the right place! Let us know more about the VLC media player.

What is a VLC media player?

As the name suggests, the VLC media player is an open-source media player to stream different types of media files such as audio and video. The VLC media player is available for both computers and mobile platforms such as android, windows, iOS, and many more.

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The VLC media player also supports compression methods for audio and video. We all need a reliable app or software to play our multimedia files, and the VLC media player is the best choice among all. The VLC player can stream media files over computer networks and can also compress them.

Advantages of VLC Media Player:

The VLC media player has many advantages. Some of them are listed below:

Formats: The VLC player supports a wide range of file formats, which makes it more useful.

Portability: When a DVD manufactured in another region is played on a media player in a different area, the format is not supported by the media players. Illegal DVD spoofing programs are required to play a DVD from other regions. However, VLC media player can even play DVD manufactured in different areas. If you are traveling to another country, you don’t need to install another player to play your media if you have the VLC media player.

AirTunes: For Apple users, the AirTunes streaming feature allows the playing of media files on your home speakers.

Effortless use: The VLC media player is light in size and is effortless to use along with the other apps. While playing the VLC media player on Windows or Mac, you will experience smooth multitasking.

Convert: The most important feature that the VLC media player has is its ability to convert any file to a supported format. Mobile phones don’t support PDF file format of multimedia, using VLC media player, you can convert the PDF files into mp3 or mp4. MP3 and MP4 also occupy less space than PDF files.

Screenshots: Another cool feature of the VLC player is, you can take screenshots while playing your media files.

Record Videos: You can even record video while playing media files on your device. You can click on View>Advacned Control to get to the hidden Record button. Click on the button and stop it by clicking it again when you are finished with the recording.

Subtitles: While playing a movie, you don’t always have the option of playing subtitles along with it. The VLC media player supports subtitles in your movies. You can download subtitle files from any website available online. Rename the subtitle file such that it matches that of the movie name. Play the file and right-click on the screen, go to subtitles and Bingo! Your subtitles get enabled.

RAR files: You can play videos that are zipped inside a RAR file.

Easy to use: The interface of the VLC player is user-friendly and easy to understand.

Online Radio: You have numerous shortcuts to radio stations in the VLC media player. You can browse any radio station of your choice and enjoy the music.

Drag and Drop: You can just drag a file and drop onto the icon of the VLC media player to play it. This feature is easy to use and is less time-consuming.

The VLC media player software is available freely for Mac systems. Let us know more about the VLC media player on Mac.

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Requirements to Download VLC Media Player For MAC:

The versions Mac OS X 10.7.5 or later support VLC media player. The player runs on any 64 bit Intel-based Mac.

Steps to Download VLC Media Player For MAC:

With so many advantages of the VLC media player, let us know some steps of how we can download and install it on our devices.

Step 1: Download the VLC media player online for Mac OS X version from any third-party website.

Step 2: After you finish downloading the VLC media player, locate the downloaded file on your device.

Step 3: Open the file, and after some verification of contents, it gets open.

Step 4: Click and drag the icon of the VLC player onto the applications folder and release it.

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Step 5: The VLC media player will get copied to your application folder.

Step 6: Double click on the orange-colored cone-like icon of the VLC player to open it.

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Step 7: Grant the required permissions if your Mac asks for it.

Step 8: After the procedure, the VLC media player will get launched.

Step 9: Stream and use the media player with all ease.

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The best thing about VLC media player is that it is absolutely free and can be used by anyone. Whenever you get stuck about the downloading or installation procedure of the VLC media player, you can refer to the information given above to get a clear idea.

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Must Read: Apple Music Free Trial

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omgtalkingmuffin · 8 years ago

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Olicity quotes from season 1

In anticipation of the planned trends for November 27 and 28, I thought it would be helpful to compile Olicity quotes to use in tweets (it’s important to mix things up to be able to trend and not get caught up in spam filter) What better way to celebrate trend the Olicity wedding than to quote their best moments? I suggest adding them to corresponding stills, pics, gifs or links to youtube clips in tweets.

So without further ado, here’s season 1:

Felicity Smoak? Hi. I'm Oliver Queen. Of course. I know who you are, you're Mr. Queen. No, Mr. Queen was my father. Right, but he's dead. I mean, he drowned. But you didn't, which means you could come down to the I.T. department and listen to me babble. Which will end. In 3... 2... 1. I'm having some trouble with my computer and they told me that you were the person to come and see. I was at my coffee shop surfing the web and I spilt a latte on it. Really? Yeah. 'Cause these look like bullet holes. My coffee shop is in a bad neighborhood. If there is anything that you can salvage from it, I would really appreciate it.

I should add "personal Internet researcher for Oliver Queen" to my job title. Happily, I mean.

Hey. [Gasps] Don't you knock? Felicity, this is the I.T. department. It's not the ladies room. Right. What can I do for you? My buddy Steve is really into archery. Apparently it's all the rage now. I don't know why. It's looks utterly ridiculous to me. Mm-hmm. Anyway, it's Steve's birthday next weekend, and I wanted to buy him some arrows. The thing is, he gets these special custom-made arrows, and I have no idea where he gets them. I was hoping you could find out where this came from. The shaft's composite is patented. And that patent is registered to a company called Sagittarius. That's Latin for the archer. Really? Could you find out where and when this was purchased? According to Sagittarius company records, that particular arrow was part of a bundle shipment. 200 units. Sent... to this address. Felicity... You're remarkable. Thank you for remarking on it. And Merry Christmas. I'm Jewish. Happy Hanukkah.

And here I was beginning to think my days of being Oliver Queen's personal computer geek were coming to an end. Is that your way of saying you miss me? No. But if it works for you, go with it. Heh. So a friend of mine is running a scavenger hunt, and there's a case of Lafite Rothschild 1982 waiting at the end. Oh...I love red wine. But in order to find it, I first need to get through this. Hmm. Security fob. It's pin protected. Challenge response goes back to a company called Blackhawk Squad Protection Group. Yeah, my friend had his bodyguard set it up for him. Personally, however, I think it's cheating. But whatever. This is a military-grade cryptographic security protocol. Your friend really went to all this trouble? The idle rich are hard to entertain. Listen... You get through it and one of those bottles of wine is yours.

Felicity. Hey, they said you'd be up here. You look like something the cat dragged in. Not that there are cats in this building. Well, once a cat did get in, but a guard tazed it. It smelled like fur and static in here for like a week. Would you mind stepping away from the window for a moment? I have a little bit of a hangover. Sounds like you need a bloody Mary and a pretzel, not the I.T. Department. Actually, my buddy Kevin is starting an energy drink company. He says it's fantastic for curing hangovers, but I am very particular about what it is I put in my body. I've noticed. I said, not noticed. Right? I'm trying to find a secret recipe. Could you please do a spectroanalysis of the sample and find out exactly where in the city it's made? If it's an energy drink, why is it in a syringe? I ran out of sports bottles.

Hi. Hi. Thanks for meeting me. I was...nervous to come to your house. Okay... The thing is, I've been debating whether or not to share this with you for weeks. Can I trust you? [Scoffs] I'm not an idiot. You've dropped some fairly ridiculous lies on me, and...yet I still feel like I can trust you. [Chuckles] Why is that? I have one of those faces. Sorry. Yes. You can trust me.

I'm not going to hurt you, Felicity. How do you know my name? Because you know my name. Oliver, oh... Wow. Everything about you just became so unbelievably clear. You're bleeding. I don't need to be told that. You need a hospital. My--my father's old factory, in the Glades. No, you-- you need a doctor, not a steelworker. Felicity...You have to promise me that you are going to take me to my father's factory and nowhere else. Yeah, promise. [Breathing heavily] Something tells me blood stains are not covered under my lease.

The police collected a sample of your blood at Queen Consolidated. I just hacked the crime lab and ordered the sample destroyed. Oops. Heh. I hope it's all right. Your system looked like it was from the eighties, and not the good part of the eighties, like Madonna and, well, legwarmers. It's a lot of work. Does that mean you're in? You mean in as in I'm going to join your crusade? Well, you're practically an honorary member of the team already. Hmm. So Mr. Diggle said. No. Then why'd you upgrade my system? First, because seeing a network that poorly set up hurts me. In my soul. And second... I want to find Walter. My stepfather. He was nice to me. And Mr. Diggle told me that the notebook you use to fight crime is the same notebook that got Walter abducted. I'll help you rescue him, but that's it. Then I want to go back to my boring life of being an I.T. girl. That's my offer. Ok. So I've been meaning to ask... Is there a bathroom? 'Cause I've had to pee since I got here. It's upstairs to the left. Great. Felicity, thank you.

Oliver, I know you don't want to hurt this girl and you didn't have any choice in telling her who you really were, but we're asking her to get involved in some pretty dangerous stuff. We can protect her.

Felicity! Did you just... Computer override your lock. Maybe a little. What are you doing? I pulled up some information on Mr. Williams. Did you know he's a widowed father of a 10-year-old boy? I told you. I'm only in this to help Walter. Not to be an accessory to orphaning little kids. I'm just giving him a warning. Has it ever occurred to you you could do some real good in the city? Beyond just recovering people's stock portfolios and their saving accounts. You're not the only one who knows how to reboot my system. I made a mistake. Getting in my way? I don't disagree. No. Signing on with you. Even provisionally.

I had a bet going with myself on how quickly you two would visit. Tell me not to reveal your secret. Looks like I won. Actually, Felicity, I was hoping that I could get you to change your mind. I was worked up on adrenaline last night, and I didn't exactly put my best foot forward. I was hoping you'd give me the opportunity to do that now. How about you start with Ken Williams? Did he also get to enjoy your adrenaline last night? No, he returned the money that he stole just in time to put his son to bed. Like I said, Felicity, just a warning...

Why don't I work a couple of little tech, you distract her with a little flirty flirt, slip said tech onto her phone. It'll turn into a micro transmitter, and boom, we'll learn everything she knows. Hmm. It's not how I typically get my information. How do you typically do it? I find the person. And then I put the fear of God into them until they talk. But we can try your way.

Speaking of, have you given any thought to what might happen if this doesn't work and the Dodger absconds with your family jewels? I'm sorry, that came out very wrong.

Talk to me, Felicity.

Psst. By the way. If you ever need to tell someone about your day... You can tell me.

Don't worry, Felicity, they don't send blondes there. I dye it, actually. I keep your secret...

I'll be with you the entire time. Thanks. [Sighs] It feels really good having you inside me. And by "you," I mean your voice. And by "me," I mean my ear. I'm gonna stop talking right now.

You're gonna be really upset when you meet my partner

Unless I can waltz up to Merlyn's mainframe and plug in my tablet directly, there's no way of getting that location. Then we waltz.

Hey, Felicity. Hmm? Hold on to me tight. I imagined you saying that under different circumstances. Very platonic... circumstances.

I used to think the Vigilante was a criminal, too, but it seems to me, whoever he is, he's willing to sacrifice an awful lot to help the people of this city. Kind of makes him a hero... Doesn't it?

This whole area is ground zero. I want you out of here. If you're not leaving, I'm not leaving.

#olicity quotes #olicity #olicity trends

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linabrigette · 7 years ago

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How Lightning’s Elizabeth Stark Raised an Army

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A former academic, Elizabeth Stark likes to play devil’s advocate. Take, for instance, her appearance at the Crypto Springs conference in October 2018.

It’s a sunny morning in Palm Springs, California, and a handful of attendees are lounging by the pool; onstage, however, Stark is busy describing some of the darker potential scenarios for the cryptocurrency industry, ones in which it could fall short of its potential.

But if the words of warning aren’t drawing a response, it’s perhaps because the price of bitcoin is still north of $6,000, and some are optimistic that the so-called “crypto winter” will soon be over, evaporated by an end-of-year upswell in institutional money entering the industry.

It’s not a sentiment shared by Stark, though, who warns attendees that legacy financial players could take stronger measures to impede the sector’s growth. “When you change how money is created and valued, there is going to be major pushback,” Stark says.

Later, Stark draws applause when she castigates the previous year’s explosion of initial coin offerings (ICOs), and the sometimes shady startups that used them as a means of securing fundraising from a market that was suddenly full of unsophisticated buyers.

“I’m all for experimentation, but I’m not for experimentation if it means that retail investors are going to get sluiced,” she says. “Ninety-five percent of the coins that we have right now will probably fail.”

The stance has come to dominate more and more of Stark’s talks of late, that innovation can and must be balanced with steps that avoid consumer harm, and it’s one that’s taking on increasing relevance as the crypto market cools and the industry attempts to take stock of why billions in consumer money came in 2017, only to quickly retreat.

“If you really believe in decentralization then why are you creating all these centralized services?” she continues.

Referring to the way crypto exchanges and certain wallet providers control the private keys to their customers’ wallets, thus undermining the value proposition of personal financial sovereignty, she adds: “We need to get to a world where people can hold their own keys…have this autonomy.”

Yet, as frank and sobering as her talk might have been, Stark has the clout to not only call for change in the industry, but deliver it. After years of quiet building at her startup, Lightning Labs, 2018 has been a breakout year for both Stark and her company.

In fact, Stark’s accomplishments this past year dwarfed those of most other entrepreneurs, as her decision to roll up her sleeves in 2015 and take the helm of an open-source project many saw as the best chance to massively scale bitcoin (but that perhaps had little business value) began to bear serious fruit.

Rallying the troops

If it weren’t for Elizabeth Stark, bitcoin’s lightning network might still be just an idea.

Instead, it’s become a functioning, if niche, payments system; a hotbed of software development; and a beacon of hope for those who believe in bitcoin’s potential as an everyday currency. All in the space of a year.

A law school graduate, Stark doesn’t code much. But there are many who credit the Lighting Labs CEO for much of the remarkable progress lightning has made.

“She helped get everyone to actually make stuff,” said Tadge Dryja, who co-wrote the 2016 lightning white paper with Joseph Poon. “Her thing is not only identifying a super-cool project, but then saying, ‘We should actually build this.’”

As such, Stark is often described as a kind of warrior queen, who now commands an army of elite developers.

Elizabeth Stark onstage at Consensus 2018.

“Her general conviction and ability to organize and arm the troops and to aim the cannon, then allow these really talented people to shoot, is really rare in this space,” said Jack Mallers, who developed the Zap bitcoin wallet using the lightning network’s open-source code.

It was Stark, after all, who recruited Olaoluwa Osuntokun, a Nigerian-American prodigy, to work full-time in the cryptocurrency industry. The former Google engineering intern known as “Lalou,” now Lightning Labs’ CTO and co-founder, has become one of bitcoin’s most prolific developers, taking over the work Dryja and Poon started on the layered scaling solution. (Both have since departed, citing differences with Stark).

More broadly, Stark is also widely credited for turning her friend Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter and co-founder of Square, into a bitcoin believer. Since Dorsey fell into Stark’s orbit, the Square payments app has become one of the most popular ways for U.S. retail investors to acquire bitcoin. He also invested personally in Lightning Labs, the company Stark co-founded that develops the open-source Lightning Network Daemon (LND) protocol.

But perhaps the clearest proof of her influence can be seen in the blossoming of lightning itself during a brutal year for cryptocurrency prices and a period of overall retrenchment for blockchain companies.

The number of nodes on the nascent network swelled from a few dozen in early January to more than 1,900 in mid-December, according to BitcoinVisuals.com. (1ml.com gives an even higher estimate, including some that aren’t currently active, with more than 4,500 lightning nodes.)

Lightning now has the capacity to process about $2 million worth of crypto transactions, based on the balances held in its more than 13,000 payment channels. While that may seem small, it’s an auspicious start considering the beta version of LND was only released in mid-March. Underscoring the health of the young ecosystem, there are multiple implementations of the software, of which LND is only one.

“Lightning is a movement,” Stark told BTC News Today recently, recalling a conversation with a bitcoin fan who first coined this phrase. “We’ve spent the past year building this movement and it’s working.”

From law school to lightning

It’s been a long time since Stark, a giggly vegan who hardly fits the bitcoin stereotype of a socially awkward introvert, started her journey to become an unlikely heroine in bitcoin’s origin story.

“As a teenager, [I] was an internet geek who liked electronic music,” Stark told BTC News Today. “So basically I’m the same person today.”

Growing up in the New York suburbs, she said, she knew her calling was to build new technology. “As a teenager, I interned at startups in New York City,” she said. “Law school was actually an interesting means to study and research the internet.”

Stark was busy honing debate skills and graduating from Harvard Law School in 2008, the year Satoshi Nakamoto published the bitcoin white paper. After law school Stark went into academia, teaching human rights and computer science courses at universities like Yale, Stanford and Harvard.

It was at Stanford, in 2010, where she first heard about bitcoin from a teaching assistant.

A coffee machine is retro-fitted to accept bitcoin lightning payments.

By the time she met with Dryja in 2015, developers had started to theorize what would later become the lightning network, which was then little more than a concept on slide decks and whiteboards. Yet, Stark was ready to lead a startup.

“From the beginning she was clear, she wanted to be the CEO,” Dryja recalled. “She’d seen a lot of ideas that never got anywhere, not because the idea was bad but because there’s a big difference between an idea…and getting it so that millions of people can use it.”

Dryja, who co-founded Lightning Labs with Stark then left the company in 2016, credited his former colleague for prioritizing quality over quantity. Despite being a rookie businesswoman, she lined up prominent investors like Charlie Lee, the creator of litecoin, former PayPal COO David Sacks, and Dorsey. But Stark raised a modest $2.5 million from these investors and avoided the lucrative token sales that were then becoming fashionable.

“Even in 2016, you could have raised a ton of money and gotten a fancy office, but she didn’t want to,” Dryja said.

Stark said she’s driven by a desire to create “significant technology that will have effects on the 10-year horizon and beyond.” In her mind, lightning is a key part of ensuring bitcoin’s longevity.

“This is a marathon, not a sprint,” she said.

Subtly persuasive

Perhaps thanks to her legal background, Stark has the uncanny ability to disagree without being combative and guide decisions without barking orders.

Her presence is unassuming, yet irresistible. The raven-haired CEO is often spotted beside Bitcoin Core developer Matt Corallo at meetups with her omnipresent smile and cypherpunk black wardrobe.

“She’s very socially equipped in terms of networking, something that I don’t do well and don’t enjoy,” Mallers said. “Writing the code isn’t the hard part. It’s aligning the direction, limiting the scope, organizing.”

Yes, you can really hold these in an ethereum address.

No matter where you go in the tech industry, someone in the room probably considers Stark a friend and wants to hear what the level-headed extrovert has to say. This nonchalant charm makes her an anomaly in a field teeming with bombastic personalities.

Although there may be some professional rivalry with bitcoin-focused startups like Blockstream, Dryja said Stark’s approach is to listen to everyone and observe how users interact with a protocol instead of “trying to dictate what people do with it.”

Another sign of her personality: no matter how busy she gets, Stark is generally responsive to chats in the LND Slack group, where developers and fans around the world collaborate, and which now has more than 2,870 members.

“I think it speaks to who she is as a person that she is fostering this community. And it speaks to her savvy as a business owner,” Mallers said.

Referring to Lightning Labs, he added, “all their software is open source and they are very grounded, sticking to their original vision.”

Diversity and mentorship

Another way that Stark distinguishes herself is by deliberately creating opportunities for minorities to contribute to an industry predominantly led by white men.

Stark co-organized the Crypto Springs conference in October, where more than half of the speakers were women, and scholarships for women to attend Bitcoin Core contributor Jimmy Song’s programming bootcamp.

Mir Liponi, an Italian vlogger and co-founder of Blockchainlab, said meeting Stark at a Consensus conference in 2015 inspired her decision to take a more active role in Italy’s bitcoin community.

A statue in New York with a #RECKLESS hat advertising the lightning network.

“The fact that she was so young and respected as a CEO and as a woman was something almost new to me,” Liponi told BTC News Today. “One of the greatest contributions Elizabeth [made to] bitcoin is her constant work and ability to connect experts, projects, people.”

It was Stark who helped Liponi arrange bitcoin hackathons in Milan, with people working on a variety of distinct solutions related to lightning. In part, these meetings helped set the ground work for the lightning interoperability standard called Bolt, which allows lightning-enabled bitcoin nodes to route transactions.

“If you want to design this for people to actually, use, we can’t just design it for ourselves,” Dryja said, adding Stark is one of the leading figures getting “all different kinds of people” involved with building up the bitcoin ecosystem.

Like many young developers in the space, Mallers credits Stark with mentoring him as he went from obscure hobbyist to internet-celebrity entrepreneur.

Speaking broadly to how her mentorship encourages programmers across the ecosystem to connect and ship complementary code, he added: “I give that credit to Elizabeth.”

Patient scaling

Stepping back, to fully grasp Stark’s work to bitcoin, it’s important to remember that the lightning technology was conceived, and Lightning Labs founded, in the midst of a long-running and contentious debate within the bitcoin community over how best to scale the network.

Over the years, as bitcoin’s network volume increased, rising transaction fees and slowing confirmation times had cast doubt on the currency’s suitability for use cases that were touted early on, such as micropayments for web content or prosaic retail purchases (the proverbial cup of coffee).

While few in the community questioned the so-called digital gold’s ability to serve as a store of value, its utility as a means of exchange was now at issue.

One camp, led by CEOs of venture capital-funded startups, wanted to quickly boost the network’s capacity by increasing the size of transaction blocks that are added to the ledger every 10 minutes or so.

The other camp, represented by developers and hard-core users like Stark, resisted such proposals, arguing, among other things, that a hastily implemented change to the software would present a security risk.

Elizabeth Stark, Lightning Labs, at Consensus 2016

(Stark was often outspoken during these debates about how important she believes it is to prioritize security as one of bitcoin’s core principles.)

Lightning, as conceived by Dryja and Poon, offered an alternative. Small payments would be handled off the blockchain, through a mechanism called payment channels. Users could send bitcoin back and forth to each other through these channels, and the blockchain would be reserved for final settlement.

Still, the scaling debate raged on. After a game of chicken, in which the big-block camp tried to push through a software update that might have split the network into two competing currencies, the controversial plan was called off at the eleventh hour in November 2017.

The slow-and-steady camp had prevailed, and the stage was set for layer-two solutions like lighting to flourish. Four months later, in March 2018, Lightning Labs released the beta version of LND.

Today, Stark said there are now hundreds of developers making Lightning apps and contributing to the network’s open source infrastructure. Meanwhile, the number of channels has increased 16-fold over the past year.

Regardless of the so-called crypto winter, Stark’s 11-person company shows no signs of slowing down.

“If anything, the calming of the hype and frenzy helps us because there are fewer distractions and it’s a better time to keep on building,” Stark said. “There’s a lot left to do, but this year has very much exceeded my expectations with the speed of growth and adoption.”

This further distinguishes Stark from many other CEOs of her ilk: She is patient. Speaking to what sets Lightning Labs and its vivacious leader apart from other crypto startups, Mallers concluded:

“It’s very comforting, owning bitcoin and being an investor in the asset knowing that people like her, who stay focused, grounded and mature as a business owner, are trying to accomplish something like scaling.”

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Art by Cryptopop! (@helloluis)

Images via BTC News Today archives

The post How Lightning’s Elizabeth Stark Raised an Army appeared first on BTC News Today.

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#Cryptocurrency news #Bitcoin news #btcoin price today

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evanvanness · 7 years ago

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“Useless token” friction

These days I hear lots of talk about “useless tokens” that are just “friction,” but whenever I hear talk like this, I think that these folks must be confusing Eth and Eth 2.0.

The vision has never been limited to the current state of Ethereum. In some ways, the current Ethereum is just a proof of concept. Did people actually want to build on a platform for decentralized applications?

It turns out that people did. Very much so, to the point where the network has had periods of being completely full, despite being the most scalable decentralized blockchain that is currently live. We’ve already seen some cool things happen on Ethereum (democratizing venture capital away from rich old dudes and into the hands of tech geeks, CryptoKitties, etc) . And some dodgy things (scammy “ICOs,” pyramid schemes).

But obviously Ethereum is not easy to use at the moment. NEAR Protocol’s Alex Skidanov conducted this Twitter poll:

https://twitter.com/AlexSkidanov/status/1060969607954161669

My view is pretty similar to Joey Krug’s response

https://twitter.com/joeykrug/status/1061324781188874240

The end goal of Ethereum is that the average end user transacts with these tokens but has no idea that using dapps happens through these tokens. This happens through decentralized exchanges that are trustless, instant, and liquid. Sure, users may be able to gain a few basis points by doing it themselves, but they won’t need to. [The flip side is that if you are a really early user of the web3 equivalent of Facebook, then maybe you’ll have a chance to make some money off of it because you choose to hold the tokens as the network scale.]

How does this happen? Scalability is the key here. We need to drive transaction costs down so that all these transactions can happen on-chain yet be friction-free. You click a button in an app (technically it’s a dapp that is hosted on a decentralized storage project like Swarm) and all of the “friction” that currently exists in Ethereum takes place behind the scenes so end users don’t see it. Scalability is the key to making this cheap and fast.

The above does assume that key management gets solved or ameliorated to the point where web3 is usable but I’m quite optimistic on that front. Plenty of stuff is happening today (eg, Universal Logins, GnosisSafe or DarkCrystals) that is going to make key management much less of an issue. And let’s not forget - the internet was not very usable once upon a time. Hence why people were on AOL.

A caveat: experiments are good. Not everything needs a token, and some things will likely be better without them. For example, Ethereum is usable now for those willing to put a little effort in. Some things will grow network effects before Eth 2.0 fully arrives. Many of those things that need to grow pre-Eth2.0 network effects against competitors are probably better off being tokenless so that user onboarding has less friction.

Will we get to this vision? Well, if you could predict the future, you’d be the on the top of Forbes’ richest people in the world. I’m bullish that it will happen. Eth 2.0 is moving full speed ahead at the moment.

#ethereum #web3 #tokens

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ncmagroup · 7 years ago

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Melanie Pinola

A former editor of mine once described wordy article introductions as “throat-clearing,” as in, this person doesn’t know yet what they’re trying to say, so they’re hemming and hawing before getting to the point. You could chalk it up to writers liking to explain things or the need to dramatically set up the scene, but when it comes to everyday non-fiction writing—especially on the web—it’s usually better to get to the hook as quickly as possible. The clock is ticking.

(Already I’ve spent too time on this intro. See what I did there?)

If you want to polish your prose—whether you’re writing a blog post, an email, or a report for your team—the next time you get to typing, consult this checklist of common writing mistakes. It’ll help you communicate more clearly and put the focus on what you’re saying rather than on stray commas or needless words.

Thanks to the editors, writers, and readers who chimed in with their advice for this post, which no doubt has several errors in it. Let’s just consider them Easter eggs.

The Most Common Major Writing Mistakes

When approaching a piece of writing, most editors first check for the big picture to do “macro edits.” Here, we’re dealing with the content of the story—how it flows, if it all makes sense if the tone is appropriate, and if there are any questions we didn’t answer that readers might have. I like to call this “defensive editing,” much like defensive driving.

After that, we can get into “micro-editing” for the nitty-gritty of editing for mechanics and language issues (see the next section if you, too, nerd out on words).

1. The Intro Is Unnecessarily Long

Get to the point. The example above isn’t as bad as my initial attempt at the lede (the first couple of paragraphs that introduce an article), but, at 152 words, it’s long by most web content standards.

To remember the urgent need to get to the point, keep in mind this excerpt from former Guardian editor Tim Radford’s advice for journalists (emphasis added):

When you sit down to write, there is only one important person in your life. This is someone you will never meet, called a reader.

You are not writing to impress the scientist you have just interviewed, nor the professor who got you through your degree, nor the editor who foolishly turned you down, or the rather dishy person you just met at a party and told you were a writer. Or even your mother. You are writing to impress someone hanging from a strap in the tube between Parson’s Green and Putney, who will stop reading in a fifth of a second, given a chance.

The lede is one of the most challenging parts of writing an article, report, blog post, or even an email or memo—and also one of the most important. Advice from all the writers and editors I talked to? Just write the thing and then after the piece is done, rewrite it as much as needed, which might be several times.

Melanie Pinola✔@melaniepinola

12 Mar

Do you write the lede first or last?

Joe Yaker@joeyaker

I usually write it first, then delete it, then write it last, then delete it, then delete everything, then drink some tea and contemplate my life choices, then I write something else entirely, and then I write it first again. So… first, then rewrite later.

5:45 PM – Mar 12, 2018

Twitter Ads info and privacy

Questions to ask as you’re writing or editing the lede: Does the lede make sense—explain briefly what’s to come? Is it supported by the rest of the document? Does it quickly hook the reader to continue reading? Bonus if you write for the web: Does the lede have the keywords you’re targeting for SEO?

2. Explanations Are Handwavy or Lacking Backup

That same editor who introduced me to “throat-clearing” ledes also taught me the word “handwavy,” which according to NVIDIA’s Jack Dahlgren comes from “the magician’s technique of waving their hands to draw attention away from the actions behind the magic trick.” It’s not that we’re trying to fool the reader when we’re handwavy, it’s that we haven’t provided the reader all the facts or steps they need to understand what we’re trying to explain.

So, for example, if I’m writing an article for the general public about transferring files between computers over the internet, I should explain what SFTP is when first mentioning it, since most people might not know that SFTP stands for Secure File Transfer Protocol and that it’s a way to transfer and manage files between computers over a secure connection. In the same vein, here at Zapier, we try not to assume the reader knows what Zapier is when they first come to our blog or what “Zaps” (our word for automated workflows) are.

Pro tip: Just avoid jargon, unless you’re going to explain that jargon. No one wants to feel like an outsider. Try the Hemingway app to test writing for readability.

Similarly, you need details to prove your point. If I state that exercise helps prevent colds, I’d best link those statements to research proving that point or to experts, such as doctors, who would back up that claim.

It’s about being clear to your readers and also making sure your content doesn’t have any “holes,” so you can establish trust. As Radford writes: “If in doubt, assume the reader knows nothing. However, never make the mistake of assuming that the reader is stupid. The classic error in journalism is to overestimate what the reader knows and underestimate the reader’s intelligence.”

Questions to ask as you’re writing or editing: Are terms most people don’t commonly use explained or linked to definitions? Are claims all linked to relevant research or backed by authoritative sources? If you were the target audience for this content, would it make sense to you?

3. The Content Was Written in Passive Voice

Passive voice is used too often by writers. Writers use passive voice too often. Active voice, as in the previous sentence, is more direct and stronger because the subject (writers) is doing something (using passive voice), rather than the subject taking a backseat.

Alan Henry, Senior Digital Strategist at The New York Times says:

By far, the most common thing I wind up editing out or changing is passive voice. It’s fairly simple to identify once you understand it, but it can be deceptively difficult to many writers to pick out of their own work, even if they go back and review their writing when they’re finished. If the subject isn’t clear, undefined, or you’re using verb tenses that struggle to describe the action taken by a person or party not named in the sentence, you’re probably using passive voice.

In the same vein, I find many writers rely too heavily on present participles (-ing words, for example) when the simple present version will work better, and engage a reader more directly. For example, “Bill was setting the table” is fine, but “Bill set the table” is more direct, active, and engaging, which is critical to make sure your reader sticks with you, your story, or your article all the way through—and derives value from what they just read for their own use!

Whitson Gordon, tech writer and former Editor-in-Chief at How-to-Geek and Lifehacker adds:

Passive voice isn’t always the worst thing in the world, but when it makes a sentence incredibly wordy, you’re doing a disservice to your readers. If you catch yourself saying “One of the reasons for this is,” or something similar, you should probably rethink what the subject of that sentence is.

That said, sometimes using passive voice does make more sense than the active voice. When the action is more important than who’s doing the action, passive voice is totally acceptable. For example: “My computer was stolen yesterday” is more fitting than “Someone stole my computer yesterday,” since it puts more emphasis on the event versus an unknown perpetrator. Judith Lynn Higgs points out:

In each of the sentences below, the passive voice is natural and clear. Rewriting these sentences in the active voice renders them sterile, awkward, or syntactically contorted.

Passive: Bob Dylan was injured in a motorcycle accident. Active: A motorcycle accident injured Bob Dylan. Passive: Elvis is rumored to be alive. Active: People rumor Elvis to be alive. Passive: Don’t be fooled! Active: Don’t allow anything to fool you!

Questions to ask as you’re writing or editing: Is the sentence natural and clear? Will active or passive voice make the sentence more direct and engaging? Try to rewrite with as few “to be” verbs as possible and default to active verbs and tangible nouns.

4. Too Many Words!

If you’re familiar with the Zapier blog, you’ve probably noticed that our articles are sometimes more like novellas than blog posts. While we’re fans of long-form content, we try not to be wordy.

It’s similar to the long lede issue: Wordiness within the body of the piece is beating around the bush. From Strunk and White’s seminal guide The Elements of Style:

Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

Common culprits? Overused adverbs and adjectives, such as “very” or “actually” or “quite.” Emily Triplett Lentz, Blog Editor and Content Strategist at Help Scout, says:

Your writing will be more concise and persuasive when you lose the overused adverbs and adjectives that ultimately detract from the meaning you wish to impart. Does the first of the following two sentences honestly convey any more meaning than the second?

Two-factor authentication is very important technology.

Two-factor authentication is important technology.

To take it a step further: Any time you’ve modified a noun or verb with “very,” you can probably choose a more precise word, which leads to more powerful writing:

Two-factor authentication is critical technology.

Just like many people use “uh” and “um” to fill space when they’re thinking of what to say next when we write, we often use filler words—or, as Smart Blogger calls them, “grammar expletives.” Look for the words “here,” “there,” and “it” to spot them in your writing: “Common constructions include it is, it was, it won’t, it takes, here is, there is, there will be.” Before-and-after examples: – It’s fun to edit – Editing is fun – It takes time to write – Writing takes time – There are many people who write – Many people write – There’s nothing better than blogging – Nothing’s better than blogging – Here are some things to consider: – Some things to consider are:

Also, you can probably cut “that” from most sentences without changing their meaning, says Bryan Clark, US Editor at The Next Web. For example, “I think that waffles are better than pancakes” could just be “I think waffles are better than pancakes” or even better: “Waffles are better than pancakes” (it’s assumed that’s what you think).

In the sentence above, “just” could be edited out also. But I’m leaving it in for tone and color—just watch out how often you use “just” in a piece.

Questions to ask as you’re writing or editing: Does this word add anything to the meaning or the flow of the piece? Can you read the sentence without running out of breath?

5. The Conclusion Doesn’t Conclude or Doesn’t Exist

If the lede is meant to hook readers and convince them to keep reading, the conclusion is meant to neatly tie up the piece, so readers come away satisfied. Often, though, I see drafts where the piece abruptly stops, as if the writer expended all their energy on the meat of the post and had no room left for the conclusion (the dessert, in this analogy).

Conclusions can be tricky: How do you tie up everything in a way that makes a lasting impression? Triplett Lentz’s advice:

When you don’t know how to conclude a piece of writing, try answering the “so what?” question. Why should anyone care about this? How does your idea apply to the reader as a human being? Can you situate your thesis in a broader context? If your post is about how to work a 40-hour week, for example, use the conclusion to address why that’s a goal worth pursuing, or discuss the widespread problems that our culture of overwork creates.

The conclusion is an opportunity to ask readers to engage with you further, direct them to relevant content, or give them more to ponder.

Questions to ask as you’re writing or editing: What’s the takeaway for the reader, and is that expressed in the conclusion? Bonus points if you don’t use “Conclusion” for your header for this section.

Micro Writing Mistakes We All Make

Comma comma comma comma comma chameleon (t-shirt available on snorgtees.com)

Now that we have the major writing issues out of the way, let’s talk about micro issues—the punctuation, word choices, and other things that copy editors usually catch, if you’re lucky to have a good one. They’re little things like using “their” when you mean “there” or “who” instead of “whom” (although “whom” seems to be going out of style and there’s no reason to use it except for the trousers and the steeds, and “they” is becoming more accepted as a singular pronoun).

Nitpicky as the Grammar Police might be, grammatical and mechanical errors that are easy to overlook can make your readers do a double-take and perhaps doubt your authority. As a writer, I appreciate learning from readers’ comments to not write “alot” anymore, because there’s no such thing as “alittle,” but, at the same time, I’d rather the comments were about the content.

So, here we are. It would take years to cover every grammatical mistake or point of contention, so for now we’ll just go over the most common mistakes and point you towards more resources for diving deeper.

6. Heed the Homophones

“They’re,” “their,” and “there” are examples of homophones—words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have different meanings. Another common pair of homophones is “affect” and “effect.” The former is a verb that causes something to happen (“I hope this post affects people”), while the latter is a noun (“We tried to analyze the effects of this post on readers, to no avail.”)—when it’s a noun, with an e, “effect” is the subject of something happening.

Pro tip: The best way to deal with homophones is to create a mnemonic or memory aid to remember when to use which word. For example, I remember the affect/effect example by thinking affect starts with a, which starts “action,” while effect starts with e, which starts “end” (as in, the thing that happens at the end after the action).

For more homophone fun, head to homophone.com, a site dedicated just to homophones.

7. Apostrophe Catastrophes

We can blame many cases of homophone confusion on apostrophes, that pesky punctuation mark that turns “your” into “you’re.” The former, without the apostrophe, means you own something. The latter, with the apostrophe, means you are doing something or are something. Similarly with “its” versus “it’s.” “Its” means that thing owns something, while “it’s” means “it is.”

Pro tip: Any time you use an apostrophe in a contraction, where you’re combining the verb with the noun (such as “it’s” for “it is” or “here’s” for “here is”), expand the contraction in your mind so you get the subject-verb agreement right. “Here’s the best apps,” for example, does not work when you expand the “here’s” contraction—”here is the best apps.” It should be “here are the best apps.” Just don’t use contractions in this case.

As usual, The Oatmeal has a fun graphic explainer on how to properly use apostrophes.

8. Comma and Semicolon Confusion

Semicolons are a point of contention on our content-minded team. We either love them or hate them. Use semicolons to connect two complete thoughts together—more of a pause than using a comma but less of a hard stop than using a period. I used to be on team hate and agreed with my manager Danny Schreiber, who quipped: “A semicolon is just a confused period,” but I’ve been coming around to this punctuation mark; my teammate Jill Duffy pointed out Annie Dillard’s essay “Total Eclipse” in The Atlantic, which has gems like this:

It had nothing to do with anything. The sun was too small, and too cold, and too far away, to keep the world alive. The white ring was not enough. It was feeble and worthless. It was as useless as a memory; it was as off-kilter and hollow and wretched as a memory.

When you try your hardest to recall someone’s face, or the look of a place, you see in your mind’s eye some vague and terrible sight such as this. It is dark; it is insubstantial; it is all wrong.

(Hey, if you can write like Annie Dillard, do whatever you want with punctuation.)

That said, if you do use a semicolon, make sure the parts that come before and after the semicolon are both complete thoughts (with both a subject and a verb). “I love semicolons; but hate commas” is incorrect because the “but hate commas” part can’t stand on its own, while “I love semicolons; but I hate commas” works—even if you’re better off using a comma here. Which brings us to the next point:

Commas are the worst.

They’re the trickiest punctuation mark to master and a cause of contention when it comes to style. Should you use the Oxford comma (a.k.a., serial comma) or not? The Oxford comma, if you recall, is the comma that’s added before the last item in a list. So, for example: “X, Y, and Z” follows the Oxford comma rule, as opposed to “X, Y and Z” (missing that last comma). Those who are not in favor of the Oxford comma cite aesthetics and one fewer character needed. Those on the side of the Oxford comma cite clarity. Here’s a morbid example:

Basically, pick your side, and stick with it. But if you’re on the fence, go with the Oxford comma: It can help you avoid a lawsuit that hinges on a single comma.

From our blog style guide, here are other guidelines for using commas correctly:

Remember the FANBOYS rule before adding a comma: If you’re connecting two complete thoughts with a coordinating conjunction (For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, or So), you should always use a comma before the coordinating conjunction. However, if only one part of that sentence is a complete thought, the comma is unnecessary.

Incorrect: “I’ll order the cheeseburger, but don’t want the pickles.” – “Don’t want the pickles” wouldn’t be used, in most cases, as a standalone sentence, so we don’t need the comma. Correct: “I’ll order the cheeseburger, but I don’t want the pickles.” – “I don’t want the pickles” is complete with subject and verb, so we add the comma.

Also, add a comma after “Also” at the beginning of a sentence, but don’t add a comma after “Or” or any of the other FANBOYS unless it’s followed by a parenthetical. – Incorrect: “Or, you could download this other to-do app.” Correct: “Or, if you want more features, you could download this other to-do app.”

Pro tip: Every time you want to add a comma or a semicolon, consider whether the words after the punctuation mark form a complete thought that could stand on its own.

9. Repetitive Words Repeat

According to Grammarly, one of the most common writing mistakes is using the same word often in a piece. Sometimes this can’t be helped:

But other times repeating the same words or phrases is a sign that you’re struggling to communicate or fully explain your topic without beating around the bush. Readers (that is, people) like variety, and, in some cases, the thesaurus is your friend.

Pro tip: Grammarly’s advice: Read your piece out loud, then cut down or replace frequently used words. When writing, ask yourself if you’ve already made this statement before in your piece.

10. Misused Words

Writing is all about choosing the right words in the right sequence to convey your thought or idea. Simple, right? The problem is there are so many words at your disposal and picking the “best” word is impossible. But some words are better than others when you want to get your point across and also be precise and accurate.

One of my pet peeves is when people use “less” when they should be using “fewer.” As in, “I have less readers than I did when this post was published”—it should be “fewer.” Use “fewer” when you can count whatever you’re referring to (in this case, readers) and “less” when you can’t, such as less readership or audience. Similarly, you’d say “less water” (not countable) but “fewer raindrops” (countable).

If you want to go down the word usage rabbit hole, here are the 58 most commonly misused words and phrases.

Pro tip: The next time you misuse a word and correct it (or your editor corrects it), come up with a mnemonic to remember the right word.

Sometimes writing “mistakes” are really style issues, up for debate. Other times, a writing error could trip up your reader. The most important thing is to learn from each piece of feedback you get, whether it’s your boss, a blog reader, or your future self re-reading your post months from now.

While these are the 10 most common writing mistakes we and our sources have seen, there’s plenty more where that came from, so please add your own insights in the comments.

Go to our website: www.ncmalliance.com

Write Better: The 10 Most Common Writing Mistakes You Should Avoid Making Melanie Pinola A former editor of mine once described wordy article introductions as "throat-clearing," as in, this person doesn't know yet what they're trying to say, so they're hemming and hawing before getting to the point.

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awesomeblockchain · 7 years ago

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This is a story about a Manchester startup using blockchain and peer-to-peer storage and micropayments as the basis of a fledgling YouTube competitor, which is very cool.

But it's also a story about a small startup (21 people, one round of funding) that already has to think about the internet's biggest unsolved problem: the horrifying ways we humans misuse social media to spread lies and hatred. Which is not cool at all.

-It certainly loses some of the playfulness that can come with" creating a tech-based startup, said Jeremy Kauffman, co-founder of Lbry.

I first wrote about Lbry - pronounced -library" but spelled without vowels partly to emphasize that it's a protocol, like HTTP - in late 2015, when it was just starting out.

I was fascinated that it used blockchain, which I had barely heard about at the time, to let people update and share files, including videos, and possibly make some money for doing it. Plus, the use of peer-to-peer storage of files rather than storage on some central building full of servers means it bypasses the control of any corporation.

My biggest pushback was how to differentiate it from BitTorrent, which is about as geek-focused a debate as you can get.

When Kauffman reached out recently to do an update, as the company was celebrating having a couple hundred thousand users, reaching funding goals and snagging some big media attention, my pushback was a lot less fun: Maybe it's not a good idea to make it easy for people to share videos, no matter how cool the technology.

This gloomy question arose, of course, from the realization that people and groups have used the ease of sharing material via social-media giants to help societies around the world tear themselves apart. Well-directed lies online, it seems, can lead to riots, promote ethnic cleansing and make democracy a lot less stable than it seemed; is it really worth it?

Kauffman agreed there's a concern, even if it hasn't affected him yet: -People aren't trying to spread disinformation with Lbry because it's too niche, but it's certainly something that we will face."

He talked about some technical solutions that the firm is considering. But in the end, he doubled down on a point of view that once seemed so obvious it hardly needed to be stated: Good information drives out bad, so it behooves us to make it as easy as possible for anybody to disseminate just about anything that isn't illegal.

-Generally, access to more information prevents disinformation from spreading, rather than preventing the spread of information in the first place," Kauffman said.

Not long ago I would have agreed wholeheartedly - not surprising from a newspaper reporter. But watching organized groups use file-sharing via Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, et al. to whip up hatred around the world has given me pause.

-It's not like we are getting away from a world where all of us were always telling the truth," he said, pointing to a couple of famous American examples from pre-internet days: the misleading (at best) way the Gulf of Tonkin affair was used to justify the Vietnam War, and the yellow-journalism-fueled push that created the Spanish-American War.

The fact that any wacko or hate-group-in-disguise can spread almost any message online means things are different than in those days, but that doesn't mean it's worse.

-This might result in negative things, but I think it still results in fewer negative things than trying to control information," he said.

In the meantime, Lbry is concentrating on growth out of their Elm Street headquarters. In December, Kauffman said, they raised almost $6 million via their blockchain, which he said will be enough money for about 30 more months.

The financial essence behind Lbry is that via blockchain it runs a continuous auction for URLs that point to your file. When I finally finish filming The GraniteGeek Movie (99.44 percent pure on Rotten Tomatoes) and upload it, I can pay to have -lbry://granitegeek" as the domain name, making it easy to find.

This is done via blockchain tokens, which are basically entries on the blockchain ledger that can be traded and attain value, currently at a fraction of a cent. They're sort of like a cryptocurrency, and Lbry's business model will depend on how they do over time; it has kept 40 percent of the tokens that will exist.

Lbry is more than just a protocol on the blockchain, however; it will live or die on the services it provides, like the app. As Kauffman knows, unless it is as easy to use as YouTube and the like, I don't think the argument that you can avoid corporate control of your content will be enough for it to succeed.

If nothing else, it adds another interesting element to the startup ecosystem in downtown Manchester, where blockchain and domain name servers jostle with medical devices and bio-fabrication to create an entertainingly geeky stew.

Let's just hope society doesn't destroy itself while they create the future.

https://ift.tt/2HE6T8O

#Ingentium #Inc. - Today

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kingmindint · 7 years ago

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Thoughts? Brian Kelly: Bitcoins Are Like The Internet In The 80’s

Brian Kelly is the portfolio manager of BKCM Digital Asset Fund and the CEO of BKCM. BKCM deals with some grand numbers, involving digital assets in macroeconomics, and handles strategizing on a large scale (with a minimum investment threshold of $250 000), so we recommend you take them seriously.

You may have heard us pitch idea before, and here’s further proof it makes sense. According to Brian Kelly,

“We’re in early-stage tech in this so you have to remember this is like the internet in the 1980s. I used to think this was the internet in ’95 but, after the last couple months of talking to folks, I think we’re more like the 1980s. I think this technology’s going to work. It’s going to be game-changing, but it’s very early days so we can have this massive volatility.”

What is the concept?

The idea is basically as follows: when we have seen the first of the Internet, it was really groggy, slow and inept, and yet at the time it was obvious it had the potential to transform the world.

Look at it now – distance is no longer an issue. You can not only communicate to someone on the other end of the planet by just clicking a link – but also book a plane ticket using your phone or make a Bitcoin transaction using a subdermal chip implanted under your skin.

Bitcoins today have just as much of a potential to change the world – with the increased transaction speeds and a potential of having complete transparency.

Is blockchain more powerful?

One major difference is that blockchain in open-source, which means that it is capable of permeating everything and mutating according to the possible arising requirements. Just like it is impossible to censor the internet (not for the lack of trying on the government’s part), it is impossible to hold down a genie which has been released from the bottle.

Anyone can alter the code, and transactions happen normally under the radar, which means that it’s extremely difficult to place limitations on who pays with Bitcoins and what the money is used for. Kelly says:

“It’s CISCO. We’re at the age of CISCO and Microsoft. With CISCO you’re talking about routers, right? You’re talking about internet protocols. This is an open-source software, so you can’t think of it as a company, right? And I think that’s where people make a mistake. They quote market cap and say all that. This is not a stock. This is not a company. This is open-source software.”

Blockchain, in fact, is not only capable of changing the world just much as The Internet did in its time, by demolishing geographical limitations, giving everyone as much publicity and see-thoroughness with social media, and being connected all the time. It is capable of much more.

Faster and easier transactions

This means much less time is spent on formalities and problem-solving, and more time doing something we all like. Not only can we now chat with people from all over the globe. We can send them money so they can get a plane ticket to see us.

What’s the next step? Probably VR that is indistinguishable from real life and sex doll cyborgs. “Now I have a new article to fwd to anyone that tells me “but Bitcoin can’t buy anything.” – Comment the users when they read the article that describes the next level of possibilities Bitcoin offers, namely paying for sex dolls with cryptocurrency.

We know, we know, there are standards of decency and it’s all very immoral – but no-one is made of stone. Didn’t you ever think of what it would be like to have a literally flawless partner, living tissue over a cybernetic organism? Add to that flexible payment options.

See-thoroughness

Have you read our article on the possibilities of using blockchain to create a perfect democracy where everyone has a voice? Then you know are all for freedom and empowerment, which were the values that Bitcoin was created to release and uphold according to Amir Taaki.

Now, as The Internet has given us the freedom to speak uncensored and watch pretty much everything we liked, in the same way, Bitcoins might just create a fair and just society with no corruption.

If you have grown up in one of those countries where there were a lot of limitations on getting to know other cultures, you know how sweet the thought of learning about other worlds is, for instance, if you have every used internet as a kid to watch a movie about Paris, and you’ve never seen it before.

The thought of having a system with which you could build a real democracy may be even sweeter – and we have The Internet and blockchain to thank for it.

Staying connected and participating

If you have a fitness bracelet that vibrates every time you get a message on Facebook, you know something goes on in the world 24/7/365/ Now, blockchain is capable of making you great lots of money, too, so that your every dream can come true.

Since October the 5th 2009 Bitcoin went up 1,155,659,364%. While the price is still low but steadily climbing, the market still offers a few ways to get rich.

Of course, you’d need to be equipped with experts knowledge of the market and be in touch if just about every event in order to make decisions like those guys who bought Bitcoins before it became so expensive – but that’s what we are for, right?

Images courtesy of Supload, krollontrack.co.uk.

The post Thoughts? Brian Kelly: Bitcoins Are Like The Internet In The 80’s appeared first on CoinStaker | Bitcoin News.

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via Kingmind Thoughts? Brian Kelly: Bitcoins Are Like The Internet In The 80’s

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cryptocoin4us-blog · 8 years ago

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New Post has been published on http://cryptocoin4us.com/bitcoin-news/5-sectors-blockchain-currently-disrupting/

5 Of The Sectors Blockchain Is Currently Disrupting

It’s so much more than the bitcoin.

Blockchain has been everywhere lately – and it’s so much more than a few bitcoins.

It seems that everywhere you turn in the tech industry, someone is talking about the promise of blockchain technology and how it’s going to change the world. Well, I’m here to tell you this: It’s changing the world right now.

Originally invented as a method to create and transfer value between users without an interfering mitigator, blockchain is now proving to be able to do so much more and change the very fabric of the tech world.

Being heralded as the biggest invention in tech since the internet, what can blockchain actually do to change our lives?

Here are the five industries that are being disrupted by blockchain technology, and some companies who are taking part.

Personal Finance

While we hear a lot about how blockchain is going to change the financial world, it’s sometimes hard to connect that with how it’s going to affect our daily lives.

Like most big market trends the booms, and busts are going to affect us, but it’s hard to understand how. Several companies are working on just that, such as COTI. They aim to change the way you shop online utilizing blockchain to create a fair and just online transactional system, and overall – to be the currency of online shopping.

Another company looking to make a difference in how you pay is Colu. Colu has been around for awhile (since 2012 in fact), and v is built on the notion that communities (workplaces, neighborhoods, etc.) have specific financial needs, so they need a coin that is tradable within the community. Their mobile wallet app allows for peer-to-peer and customer-to-business transactions, so community members can financially interact.

Social Media

Social media governs our daily lives and with Russia potentially tampering the 2017 elections, and the spread of fake news it seems to also somewhat govern our governments. Narrative is a blockchain based content platform that rewards those who create good and non-abusive content with cryptocurrency and exposure. Thus, users see more positive, accurate content, and less negative,”bad egg” content by keeping these at the bottom of the feed.

Another social media platform utilizing blockchain is Vanywhere. Vanywhere is a gig economy website, which utilizes the blockchain in order to connect users with specific skills to those users in need of these specific skillsets. The transactions on this platform are being done via cryptocurrency, which means neither side has to pay any sort of fee or commission for this exchange.

Travel

Currently, Expedia and Priceline control up to 95% of the travel market, depending on the region. This gives them almost unlimited power in what they can demand from suppliers like airlines and hotel chains. Price fixing is a common trend in making sure prices are tailored to them rather than the customer and the provider. They also demand massive fees from travel providers, which are then, in some form or another, rolled on the the consumer.

Winding Tree aims to improve that by creating a peer-to-peer travel marketplace with no middlemen; connecting providers directly with consumers. They have recently announced a partnership with Lufthansa.

And trying to impact a different sector, CarFix creates a decentralized marketplace for all things automotive, aiming to create transparency and avoid price manipulation in the industry.

Investment

If you’ve heard about blockchain before, you know of blockchain as an investment -basically buy some cryptocurrency and wait for its value to go up.

What you might not know is that the decentralized technology is creating many new ways to invest and trade, in both digital and non-digital assets. The first is Zen Protocol which is building a bridge to connect digital and crypto assets to real life stocks and commodities, so people can create options, derivatives and more in a blockchain based trading platform.

Another company taking steps to connect the investment world with the digital one is Blackmoon Crypto which is focused on creating a tokenized investment interface, aiming to help people manage funds while taking care of every aspect, such as tech and legal.

Energy

This is where blockchain can impact industries but also the well being of our planet. WePower is allowing green energy consumers to make investments and profit off-of their completed green energy products, as well as provide suppliers with capital to further green and clean energy.

If you thought blockchain is a financial tool for geeks, you have another thing coming. Almost every industry is seeing the potential of a decentralized product and a peer-to-peer financial market. I myself am turning into a blockchain addict each and every day.

#5 Of The Sectors Blockchain Is Currently Disrupting

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shuying877 · 8 years ago

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Amazing Internship (Paid) job at Rent Market Malaysia

Rent Market is a fast growing property portal in Malaysia. Their portal provides consumers a platform to identify available properties for rent. Designed with the end-user in mind, the portal boosts real time access to multi-media rich content covering property and home-related services, news, guides, tools and a rapidly growing online property database in Malaysia. In works closely with prominent real estate developers and agencies in Malaysia.

Our team contained fun and talented artist, geek, singer, performancer, writer, hacker and more with tons of influencing power on social media network.

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Are you passionate to join an exciting startup that going to be the next big thing in the Internet reign? Do you want to learn and work closely with people who are intelligent and driven? Can you play smart and keep up with a fast paced team?

Do you want to learn how to build an economy sharing platform or marketplace like Airbnb & Uber? Create amazing bootstrap landing page and CMS; Code fancy mobile app in Android and iOS; Design stunning graphics in UI/UX and corporate ID; Develop viral social media marketing and advertisement; Learn tactics for traffic & impression generate that leads to sales; TED talk public speaking & presentation soft and technical skills; Research big data analytics and customer insights measurement, and more!

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During the internship period, you will be exposed to these areas:

Technical track (if you are in IT background):

Design and develop rapid prototypes of web-based, mobile-friendly applications

Implement high-end performance web UIs for desktop, mobile and table browsers

Advise, collaborate with, and synthesize feedback from product managers, designers, and researchers, and members from across the organization

Assist in mobile app publishing work to Google Play and App Store

Learn tools and processes required in order to deliver tech products and features

Minimum qualifications:

Familiar with popular programming languages like PHP / Ruby / Python / Java/ csharp etc. (you can decide which)

Good knowledge of web standards and protocols including HTML, CSS, JavaScript

Non-Technical (if you are NOT in IT background):

Promote, influence, connect and engage our users/ potential members by projecting our product and the team by using social media platform

Search Engine Optimizer (SEO) techniques and Google Analytics skill

Crafting creative lifestyle articles with money-saving tips on dining, investment, travel, home and more.

Assist and support business development team across communications, service planning & delivery, etc.

Promote and organize events in order to grow the community, acquire users and increase the brand recognition

Design marketing materials, Public Relations initiative, coordinate marketing campaign

Skills and Requirements

If you're ambitious, humble, creative and motivated to "create a movement" then please apply. You don't need the following but it certainly helps:

Proficient in English, both in verbal and writing

Basic Microsoft skills

Able to travel

Familiar with social media platforms

Able to work well in a team, but also on your own

Loves meeting new people, people person, loves to help others

To apply for this position, please email your CV, a covering letter and example of published work to [email protected]. Kindly attach your CV with a recent photo of yourself.

From http://www.startupjobs.asia/job/32575-amazing-internship-paid-others-job-at-rent-market-malaysia

from https://startupjobsasiablog.wordpress.com/2017/08/29/amazing-internship-paid-job-at-rent-market-malaysia-2/

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awesomeblockchain · 7 years ago

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In the 1960s hit musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, the hero J. Pierrepont Finch makes a dizzying ascent from window washer to chairman of the World Wide Wicket Company. His remarkable rise requires no great talent; he needs only a single tool: a self-help book.

Now in 2018, blockchain technology is the equivalent of How to Succeed's wondrous self-help book. Take an ordinary business, add blockchain and - presto! - tout success in a breathless press release.

Case in point: In December 2017 the company formerly known as Long Island Iced Tea changed its name to Long Blockchain. This single shift caused its stock price to rocket upward, almost doubling its market cap.

Minor detail: The sugary drink company had no actual involvement with blockchain. It was merely -in the preliminary stages" of evaluating blockchain opportunities, it stated. Alas, the company's blockchain gambit ran aground and its stock price slumped. In late February, Nasdaq announced it will delist the firm. The company will appeal the ruling.

Eastman Kodak, which has fallen on hard times in the selfie era, in early January launched a blockchain-based platform for digital rights management. Even hipper, the platform will have its own cryptocurrency, KodakCoin. The company's stock price enjoyed a -Kodak moment," spiraling upward.

Yet skeptics raised myriad questions. Is blockchain truly necessary for rights management? Currently the answer is no. Do photographers want to be paid in crypto-tokens? Seems doubtful. Kodak maintains that its blockchain initiative will come into sharper focus. Yet by early March its stock lost much of its blockchain-induced bounce.

Long Blockchain and Kodak aren't alone in riding the blockchain hype wave; examples are numerous. My personal favorite is Chanticleer Holdings, which announced it was putting its restaurant loyalty program on blockchain. --Eating a burger is now a way to mine for cryptocoins!" the company enthused, which is likely the Best Tech Hype of the Year, 2018.

If blockchain isn't quite magical, it does have a unique claim to fame. It's the geekiest technology ever embraced by a mainstream audience. It even tops -algorithm," which entered the vernacular in about 2012 or so.

The public embrace of deep-geek blockchain flows from its link with bitcoin. Mysterious cryptocurrency pioneer Satoshi Nakamoto (who may be a person or a group of people) developed blockchain as a distributed ledger technology to enable bitcoin.

You've surely noticed that bitcoin inspires a frenzy of speculative investing. It's minted fortunes for lucky early investors, and fueled anger at uncles and brothers-in-laws who talked people into it at peaks.

But the very sexy bitcoin is a completely separate idea from the very non-sexy blockchain. That stock prices leap at the first whiff of -blockchain" suggests people don't fully understand this. Or perhaps it shows that investors aren't rational, which isn't news.

Blockchain's distributed ledger technology is famously secure. Each block is protected by the entire decentralized network.

As this year's soaring-slumping stock prices demonstrates, the hype around blockchain is like some shadowy voodoo that proves false in the light of day.

The irony is that, despite the apparent false promises of blockchain, in fact this emerging technology holds vast potential.

The core magic is blockchain's ability to create decentralized consensus. Its distributed ledger technology enables one single, authoritative version of the facts, with no need for a central authority like a large bank or government agency.

Traditionally we've always needed a central authority - and perhaps we still do. Blockchain's shift from the old single monarchy-manager to decentralized consensus will surely upset business and culture significantly.

Blockchain's most visible advocate inside the old guard is Abigail Johnson, Chief Executive of Fidelity Investments. As the leader of a staid repository of mutual funds, Johnson's embrace of disruptive technology is unexpected.

She told The Wall Street Journal: -Blockchain technology isn't just a more efficient way to settle transactions, it can fundamentally change market structures and perhaps even the architecture of the Internet itself."

Johnson herself owns a computer that has mined cryptocurrency. And in reference to bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, she's been known to wear a red, white and blue button that proclaims: -Vote Nakamoto President."

The full extent of how blockchain will disrupt business is unclear because the technology is nascent. While blockchain debuted in 2009, the Ethereum blockchain, with its pioneering use of smart contracts, didn't launch until 2015.

A smart contract on blockchain is an automated, self-enforcing digital contract that executes without human assistance. A smart contract's ability to transact autonomously enables myriad business capabilities.

The downside: blockchain's smart contracts are astoundingly buggy. One study found that at least 34,000 Ethereum smart contracts contain security vulnerabilities. Alas, blockchain hasn't yet learned to fly.

Smart contracts are just the dawn of the technology that will extend blockchain. The big one: artificial intelligence. AI will be married to blockchain, creating a decentralized network that adapts by itself. A -live" network whose capabilities grow without human help.

For now, real world deployments of blockchain live in a gray area between revolution and evolution. Not tearing down existing business-tech norms yet clearly suggesting tectonic shifts. For instance:

Corda: Enterprise software company R3 has worked with financial companies and tech firms to develop Corda, launched in 2015. The Corda blockchain project enables businesses to build interoperable networks that transact in full privacy, using smart contracts. Corda facilitates asset exchanges without an intermediary. As R3 explains: -participants can transact without the need for central authorities."

Hmmm...if businesses don't need -central authorities," what happens to classic middlemen like large financial institutions?

Arcade City: Uber famously disrupted the ancient taxi business using a central algorithm that controls pricing and services. Austin-based Arcade City uses blockchain to connect drivers to riders with no middleman at all.

Powered by the Ethereum blockchain, Arcade City's -ridesharing for the people" model is the ultimate free-market platform. Drivers set their own rates and negotiate directly with riders. Drivers also verify their own identity, which raises questions: is everyone who they claim to be? But that's the brave new world of blockchain. Its -decentralized consensus," pushes out the stuffy governing authority. It's a Wild West where the larger group is (theoretically) the sheriff.

ADEPT: The combination of blockchain and the Internet of Things feels almost sci-fi. One imagines a vast, far-flung empire of blinking devices executing smart contracts with no human input. IBM in partnership with Samsung created a blockchain-IoT mash-up called ADEPT, which they dub -cognitive IoT."

ADEPT enables an IoT network to respond autonomously to changing market conditions. A washing machine autonomously reorders detergent; a video display system autonomously shows advertising. Who needs humans?

OpenBazaar: The retail sector may offer blockchain's greatest potential. OpenBazaar uses blockchain as the foundation of a decentralized online market, a -permissionless marketplace." Built by startup OB1, the platform has attracted $4.2 million from blue chip venture groups like Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures.

OpenBazaar's buyers and sellers use bitcoin and can transact anonymously if they choose the Tor option. The marketplace's welcome page offers users -no data collection, and no censorship."

This unregulated commerce raises questions about who is selling what to whom. OpenBazaar disputes that it's a darknet market, as was the now-defunct Silk Road. Yet it does concede, in its own words, -no one is able to directly stop illicit activity on the network."

-OpenBazaar is a protocol and network for trade," OB1 explains, opining that -the OpenBazaar network tends to reflect society in general: a few people engage in illicit activity, but the vast majority don't."

Previous platforms and systems required a single governing authority; some entity had to accept responsibility. After it became clear that Facebook was used by foreign agents to influence the 2016 election, Mark Zuckerberg endeavored to make amends.

In contrast, Blockchain's decentralized consensus means the system itself is in charge - kind of. In reality, there may be no one in charge. That freedom may be frightening or liberating, but either way, blockchain promises a radical departure from the old way of doing things.

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#Ingentium #Inc. - Today

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shuying877 · 9 years ago

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Amazing Internship (Paid) job at Rent Market Malaysia

Rent Market is a fast growing property portal in Malaysia. Their portal provides consumers a platform to identify available properties for rent and sale. Designed with the end-user in mind, the portal boosts real time access to multi-media rich content covering property and home-related services, news, guides, tools and a rapidly growing online property database in Malaysia. In works closely with prominent real estate developers and agencies in Malaysia.

Our team contained fun and talented artist, geek, singer, performancer, writer, hacker and more with more than 10k followers on social media network.

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During the internship period, you will be exposed to these areas:

Technical track (if you are in IT background):

Design and develop rapid prototypes of web-based, mobile-friendly applications

Implement high-end performance web UIs for desktop, mobile and table browsers

Advise, collaborate with, and synthesize feedback from product managers, designers, and researchers, and members from across the organization

Assist in mobile app publishing work to Google Play and App Store

Learn tools and processes required in order to deliver tech products and features

Minimum qualifications:

Familiar with popular programming languages like PHP / Ruby / Python / Java/ csharp etc. (you can decide which)

Good knowledge of web standards and protocols including HTML, CSS, JavaScript

Non-Technical (if you are NOT in IT background):

Promote, influence, connect and engage our users/ potential members by projecting our product and the team by using social media platform

Search Engine Optimizer (SEO) techniques and Google Analytics skill

Crafting creative lifestyle articles with money-saving tips on dining, investment, travel, and home

Assist and support business development team across communications, service planning & delivery, etc.

Promote and organize events in order to grow the community, acquire users and increase the brand recognition

Design marketing materials, Public Relations initiative, coordinate marketing campaign

Skills and Requirements

If you're ambitious, humble, creative and motivated to "create a movement" then please apply. You don't need the following but it certainly helps:

Proficient in English, both in verbal and writing

Basic Microsoft skills

Able to travel

Familiar with social media platforms

Able to work well in a team, but also on your own

Loves meeting new people, people person, loves to help others

To apply for this position, please email your CV, a covering letter and example of published work to [email protected]. Kindly attach your CV with a recent photo of yourself.

From http://www.startupjobs.asia/job/23749-amazing-internship-paid-others-job-at-rent-market-malaysia

from https://startupjobsasiablog.wordpress.com/2017/01/03/amazing-internship-paid-job-at-rent-market-malaysia/

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